Educating children whose parents are at war

The Military Child Coalition, a non-profit advocacy organization, held its 8th annual conference in Houston last week, and some of the best attended sessions had to do with dealing with children whose parents are deployed to a war zone, or children whose parents have suffered life-altering injuries during combat.

Dr. Stephen Cozza, a retired U.S. Army Colonel who worked for years as a psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C., talked about the developmental and academic effects such traumatic events can have on children. In districts that serve military populations almost exclusively, like Fort Sam Houston, Randolph Field and Lackland independent school districts in San Antonio, teachers are more used to these unique challenges. But many military children attend large urban or suburban districts, and their teachers may have no idea what they’re going through.

For more resources on the topic, check out this site, about the mindset of soldiers pre-, during and post-deployment. It can help give insight into what their families are going through.

Also, the Web site for the Uniformed Services University, where Cozza works, has information. The Trauma Center there, which is part of the department of psychology, is studying how the military can better serve the entire family when a soldier comes home after a catastrophic injury.